Day 29: Paris à Wellington

We were up early again to pack and start our journey to Wellington (only a short hop of about 36 hours).  We left our apartment and walked or rather dragged our bags to Place de Clichy where we caught a train to Chapelle.  I carried our bags up and down a number of stairs, (19kgs in each hand) and while they are comparatively quite small they were carrying some weight.  We had to use a ticket to get into Gare de Nord for some reason.  I tried to find a ticket machine for going our next leg to Charles De Gaulle Aeroport as it was out of zone for our ticket but there were none in sight. Rather than spend further time finding one we boarded the train and hoped we could get through at the other end.  It turned out we did need a ticket but fortunately we still had some metro tickets on hand which for some let us through.  A very weird system. 

Finding British Airways check-in proved to be a bit of challenge but we eventually found it.  We dropped off our bags and then there was a long queue for security and immigration.  Bev got pulled aside for something it picked up but it appeared to be nothing . Interestingly in London they found our sunscreen lotion at the bottom of the bag and that was the issue – we happily surrendered this so we could be on our way.  There were some frayed nerves all around, but not the very chilled out and calm us.  We had got to the airport about two hours before the departure time and we barely had time to look at any of the shops before we had to board. 

The flight was uneventful until we got to Heathrow. Being a British Airways flight we were deposited at Terminal 5.  This would not be a problem we thought.  As we had purchased the ticket separately to our Wellington – London flights we had to pick up our bags which meant going through immigration again and then we had to get to Terminal 2.  Normally this is not a problem but when we got to the queue it was very long and going very slowly.  After 45 minutes in it I realised that if we stayed too much longer we would have a  problem getting to Terminal 2 from where the Air New Zealand flight left at check-in time.  So I called a woman of authority over and explained our predicament.  She quickly understood our problem and next minute we were in front of an immigration officer who was very nice and understanding and stamped our passports and let us through.  We did have to prove our onward flights though. 

By that time both of us were desperate for a date with the toilets.  The possibility of accidents  for others must have been high given the possible two hour or more wait for processing. We were fortunate to find that the train to Terminal 2 was about to leave when we arrived at the platform and before we knew it we were whisked away.  Then it was the long walk to the check-in counter.  The next obstacle was security at Heathrow on departures.  As a result of the Manchester bombing they were being extra vigilant.  This resulted in me being frisked, Bev having her bag thoroughly examined where the offending sunscreen lotion was found and confiscated. 

It was a relief to get through all that and find a place to have a coffee before walking another half kilometre to our gate.   We had a brief stop in the Air Canada lounge. By the time we got on the plane it felt like we had not really stopped since we got up. 

Bev was full of smiles because we had managed an upgrade to Business Class!  Despite the length of the flight I did not manage any sleep.  We arrived a few minutes early and our gate still had another plane in it.  So our very large aircraft taxied several loops around the airport while it waited to be vacated. 

We were quickly off the plane.  Because we were getting onto another aircraft we had to pick up our bags.  This meant we had to go through immigration.  I had a new passport which we were told meant that I would not able to use the e-passport kiosks for going through immigration.  Why the Americans could not link my previous passport information and ESTA is beyond me.  So we had to again join a long queue. After about half an hour we were about half way through the queue.  While standing there I checked with an official sort of person if I could use my e-passport and he said yes.  So we backed out of the long queue that would mean about an hour waiting to be processed, to go instead to the e-passport reader, only then to find that it rejected both Bev and I and told us to go a real person.  I spoke to another staff to explain the situation and after a bit of a conversation we were moved further up the queue than we would have been otherwise, so something positive came out of it.  When we finally came to be processed, the immigration officer we got was a very nice man who then engaged in a long conversation about his visit to New Zealand and Australia some years ago and his belief that Sydney Harbour is the most beautiful in the world. Finally we were through.  We grabbed our bags and took them to the bag transfer and another nice man who dealt with them.  There seems to have been some customer service training somewhere along the line or it was my pretty face.

We then steeled ourselves for a long queue to get through security.  So we were surprised to find ourselves in a very short one and remarkably we did not have to take out our laptops or take off shoes or belts which had been the requirement a year ago.

The contrast was over an hour to get into the country and ten minutes to get out.  Bizarre!

We had a two hour wait for our flight after that which went very quickly.  We were called for the flight but were then sent back to the lounge again because the crew had to go through a check  due to some sort of error.  So our flight left about half an hour late. 

It was so nice to arrive in Auckland some 36 hours later and to not have to endure a long queue to get through immigration and even the biosecurity check was friendly and quick. 

While the mechanics of arriving were good the weather was dodgy with fog delaying our departure from Auckland.  We had already landed in fog on the B777 which I think was all done automatically without the input of a pilot.  

We had a bit of a delay in Auckland due to the fog but fortunately we were able to leave for Wellington arriving about half an hour late.  Wellington was a bit damp but there was no wind to greet us.